Teaching John Steinbeck

By Natanya Silverman
The novels of John Steinbeck inhabit many bookshelves in classrooms across the United States. High school English classes spend weeks exploring the details of Steinbeck''s novels; the complex relationships, the labyrinthine conflicts, and the characters and their ghosts, amid his strong, yet luxuriant language. However, beyond the standard psychological analysis of George's relationship with Lennie in Of Mice and Men, or the literary irony of Mack and the boys being called the Virtues, the Graces, and the Beauties in Cannery Row, there lies often overlooked images of Ameri...